Biennio rosso

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With Biennio Rosso (German: "The two red years" ) is referred to 1919 and 1920 in Italy, the period of the year, which was marked by the political agitation of the left. During these years, under the leadership of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), there was an attempt at a political and social overthrow with the aim of communism. The revolutionary movement spread from Turin to large parts of northern Italy . Activities began with demonstrations and strikes; often violent factory and land occupations followed. The government reacted largely passively to this development; the Fasci di combattimento , financed by factory and landowners and loosely run by Mussolini, gained in importance as opposing forces. The Fasci were able to support the approval or neutrality of the majority of the population as well as the benevolent neutrality of the government and the army; they ultimately got the upper hand. The Biennio rosso was replaced by the Biennio nero of 1921 and 1922, which culminated in the march on Rome of the Fasci and Mussolini's takeover .

prehistory

After the First World War, Italy faced problems similar to those of the losing powers, despite the victory. The finances were shattered by the war costs, with Germany and Austria-Hungary the most important markets for export and import had collapsed, industry was faced with the problem of converting to peacetime production, so the returning soldiers could hardly find work. The result was widespread dissatisfaction among the workers and also in the agricultural sector, while the bourgeoisie refused to accept the vittoria mutilata (“mutilated victory”). The election on November 16, 1919 expressed this dissatisfaction:

  • The Socialist Party (PSI), which had joined the Communist International in 1919 , became the strongest party with 156 members (1913: 33 members).
  • The Liberals who were previously under Giovanni Giolitti or under his influence received 41 of 508 seats in parliament (1913: 270).
  • the new party Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian People's Party; mouthpiece of the democratic Catholics) under its popular party leader Don Luigi Sturzo received 100 parliamentary seats.

procedure

The Biennio Rosso began with demonstrations and strikes in northern Italian industrial cities, organized by the Socialist Party (PSI) and its official party organ Avanti! were supported. They were followed by lockouts by the industry, which the workers responded to with, in some cases, violent occupations. Now the support from the PSI ended and there were no concrete instructions regarding a takeover of political power. Only in Turin, where the left-wing socialist party functionary Antonio Gramsci founded the weekly newspaper “New Order” ( L'Ordine Nuovo ) on May 1, 1919 , did the strikers and factory squatters receive concrete help. Gramsci was able to rely on the fact that in March the majority of the PSI had decided to join the Communist International and thus a revolutionary course. The publication of the manifesto Ai commissari di reparto delle officine, Fiat Centro 'e, Brevetti' Gramscis Zeitung can be seen as the prelude to the movement that led to the Biennio Rosso . In this article, the takeover of these companies by workers' councils is presented as an example of future self-government for all companies in the country. A little later, a contribution by Gramsci and Palmiro Togliatti , which appeared in the same paper under the title Democrazia operaia (Workers ' Democracy ) and advocated expropriation and workers' self-government, hit the same line . Gramsci propagated a council concept that extended beyond the factory committees into the political field. His goal was to create a revolutionary culture of self-organized producers as the nucleus of a future communist society.

Gramsci's ideas and the actions of the Turin workers spread from Turin to other cities in northern Italy such as Genoa, Pisa, Livorno and Florence. In addition to the state railways ( Ferrovie dello Stato ), this movement also encompassed rural areas, especially the regions of Emilia and Romagna. The radical Union of Italian Syndicalists ( Unione Sindacale Italiana -USI), which supported this movement, numbered about one million members at the time. When the continued operation of the occupied factories, which employed up to 500,000 workers in total, became more difficult due to a lack of raw materials and the lack of sales organizations, the crisis began.

In April 1920, the Turin council movement experienced another high point when 200,000 workers carried out a ten-day general strike. This strike was limited to Turin, however, as the national leadership of PSI refused to support it. Gramsci now drafted a 9-point program, which was published on May 8, 1920 in L'Ordine Nuovo . In his deliberations, Gramsci assumed that the time had come for a revolutionary transformation of the country, but that better coordination of workers and peasants was necessary. He assessed the situation as “either the conquest of political power by the revolutionary proletariat or a terrible reaction by the possessing class”.

When factory occupations again took place in September 1920, the focus of which was again in Turin, the workers threatened military action for the first time. The socialist party managed to reach a consensus between employees and employers in the most important factories and to prevent bloodshed. The fact that the remaining councilors were thereby isolated led to Gramsci's criticism of the leadership of the PSI. This exacerbated the internal differences between centrist, reformist and communist currents and ultimately led to the destruction of the PSI. This was already apparent at the PSI conference in Imola in November 1920 and manifested itself in the split of the Massimalisti and the founding of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) on January 21, 1922 and the split of the group around Matteotti and Turati in October 1922.

The failure of the general strike in March 1921, which can be traced back to the intervention of the Fasci di combattimento Mussolini, ushered in the turn of the Biennio nero , the two “black years” during which the Fasci dominated and finally took power under Mussolini.

Reasons for the failure of the socialists

  • Like almost all socialist and social democratic parties in Europe, the Socialist Party of Italy (PSI) was internally split between massimalists and reformists despite its official commitment to the revolutionary struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat , which also led to a separation at the end of the Biennio Rosso . The term maximalists or massimalisti goes back to the Erfurt party congress of the SPD in 1891, at which a "maximal program" with the theoretical demand for socialism and revolution as well as a "minimal program" with 15 socio-political demands to be reached immediately, including universal suffrage, speech and Freedom of association, eight-hour day , etc. was set up. Around the turn of the century also occurred in Italy the cleavage between revolution and reform-minded party members, a chief representative of the Massimalisti was Enrico Ferri . The reformists welcomed demonstrations and strikes, but the violent factory and land occupations were rejected. These Filippo Turati , the great man of the Italian Social Democrats, who makes his displeasure with this development no secret:
“There are lots of middle-class people, the petty bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, the liberals, people who had linked their hopes for progress and freedom to the rise of socialism, whom we are now driving to the other side with bloodshed and an impending dictatorship ... Violence is almost always a means that falls back on those who use it. That is at least now known to those socialists who have tyrannized Emilia with brutal violence, bold arrogance and their red tribunals. The fascists could also have the same experience, who now believe they have to 'liberate' the region with arson and violence. "
  • The Massimalisti were not under any uniform supraregional leadership. What united them were only the publications of the working class.
  • According to Gaetano Salvemini, the massimalists , the anarchists and also many socialists, with their devaluation of national feelings, the heroization of deserters and the degradation of the soldiers at the front, raised a broad layer of veterans and patriotic youths against them, which fascism with pompous heroic honors and memorials (e B. Redipuglia ) knew how to instrumentalize.
  • The fascist militias could count on the government's tolerance, executive sympathy and neutrality and had a broader financial base (industry, landowners).

consequences

The improvement in the working conditions of the employees is to be rated as positive. This led to the introduction of the eight-hour day and wage increases. A disadvantage was that not only the industrialists and landowners affected, but also large sections of the bourgeoisie were gripped by the fear of a Bolshevik revolution and either sought support from the Mussolini fasci or were at least neutral or benevolent towards their actions.

literature

  • Giorgio Candeloro : La prima guerra mondiale, il dopoguerra, l'avvento del fascismo . Feltrinelli, Milan 1978 ( Storia dell'Italia moderna , volume 8).
  • Renzo De Felice : Mussolini il rivoluzionario, 1883-1920 , Einaudi, Turin 1965 (Biblioteca di cultura storica).
  • Giorgio Galli: Storia del socialismo italiano . Chapter 7: Biennio rosso e biennio nero . Baldini Castoldi Dalai, Milan 2005. ISBN 978-88-6073-082-4 .
  • Luigi Di Lembo: Guerra di classe e lotta umana. L'anarchismo in Italia dal biennio rosso alla guerra di Spagna (1919–1939) . Pisa 2001 (Biblioteca di storia dell'anarchismo 11).
  • Giuseppe Malone: Il Biennio rosso. Autonomia e spontaneità operaia nel 1919–1920 . Il Mulino, Bologna 1975.
  • Angelo Tasca : Believe, obey, fight. Rise of fascism . Europa Verlag, Vienna 1969.
  • Roberto Vivarelli : Storia delle origini del fascismo. L'Italia dalla grande guerra alla marcia su Roma . 3 volumes, Il Mulino, Bologna 1991.
  • Hans Woller : History of Italy in the 20th century. CH Beck, Munich 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Failure to adhere to the territorial promises made by the Entente that led Italy to join the war in 1915
  2. ^ Aurelio Lepre: Il prigioniero. Vita di Antonio Gramsci. Laterza, Rome / Bari 1998, p. 26.
  3. ↑ Ordine Nuovo of September 13, 1919.
  4. ↑ Luciano Atticciati: Il Biennio Rosso with quotations from the Corriere della sera , in: Il Biennio Rosso ( Memento of March 2, 2005 in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ↑ Steven Forti: Parole in storia: Massimalismo (ital.)
  6. ↑ Gaetano Salvemini: Il Biennio Rosso e la nascita del fascismo , in: Il Biennio Rosso e la nascita del fascismo ( Memento of October 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).